Brian Clarke: The Art of Light | HENI Talks

A lifelong exponent of the integration of art and architecture, and celebrated for his paintings, sculpture, ceramics, mosaic, and his radical innovation in stained glass, Brian Clarke has been a major figure in contemporary art for the last four decades. Distilling the euphoria of form and colour, Clarke’s oeuvre is testament to the fact that ‘artistic practice has the ability to change the shape of things, has the ability to transform the world.’ This film charts his life and career from a modest upbringing in Oldham, through cutting-edge punk years, to producing the single largest pieces of stained glass in the world at this time. With contributions from Paul Greenhalgh, Director, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts; photographer Ralph Gibson; Dame Zaha Hadid; Sir Peter Cook; and June Osborne, DL, Bishop of Llandaff.

Brian Clarke: architectural artist, stained glass artist and painter |

The Modern Invention of Ancient White Marble (An Aeon Video, 6 mins)

Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist?

For most people today, ancient Greek sculpture brings to mind images of pearly white human figures. Yet, ever since the first excavations of Pompeii in the 17th century, archeologists have known that these sculptures were painted in vivid colours. The German archeologists Vinzenz Brinkmann and Ulrike Koch-Brinkmann have been studying the polychromatic nature of ancient Greek sculptures for some four decades – a process that involves research through reconstruction. In this short film from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Brinkmann discusses their process, and why the visual code of white antique marble persists today.

Video by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Directors: Sarah Cowan, Jonathan Sanden

26 July 2022

Ancient Greek sculptures were colourful. Why does the white marble ideal persist? | Aeon Videos